The G.O.P. Fails Its Super Tuesday Trump Test

"Just five days ago, we began to unmask the true nature of the front-runner so far in this race," Senator Marco Rubio, of Florida, said, in Miami, on the night of Super Tuesday—a night that ended badly for him. "Five days ago, we began to explain to the American people that Donald Trump is a con artist. And in just five days we have seen the impact it is having all across the country." Rubio has been running against Trump for eight months, which raises the question of why his unmasking efforts had waited until last week, and what evidence he has that his attacks are working now. By the early hours of Wednesday morning, Trump was declared the winner in seven states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, won his home state, as well as Oklahoma (which was one of four on the Democratic side that went to Senator Bernie Sanders) and Alaska. Rubio won only the Minnesota caucuses.

Seven, three, one—with, from the perspective of Republican Party leaders, the wrong Trump challenger getting the three. Cruz, a far-right extremist with a growing reputation for dishonesty, is somehow not an ideal foil for a xenophobic demagogue with authoritarian leanings. There isn’t one in the Republican Party right now. Cruz spoke before the results from Minnesota came in, and seems to have gambled that they wouldn’t go Rubio’s way. Fifteen states had voted, he said, and "every one of those states so far has been won by either Donald Trump or myself.” He was the only candidate who had beaten Trump, and anyone without a win should get out—or, as he put it, "I ask you to prayerfully consider our coming together." That seems unlikely to happen soon. Meanwhile, Trump is far ahead.

Soon after Rubio spoke, Chris Christie came onstage in a ballroom at the Mar-a-Lago Club, in Palm Beach, to introduce the man he referred to, bleatingly, as "Mr. Trump." Standing in front of an array of American flags, Christie said, "Since June 16th, when Mr. Trump declared his candidacy, he has shown himself to be tough and strong and bold." (In December, Christie disparaged Mr. Trump as someone who was "used to being able to just fire people indiscriminately on television.") This was more than a Presidential campaign; it was "a movement," Christie said, and after again listing the Trumpian virtues—“strong, bold, tough, decisive”—he made way for the man himself.

"Chris, thank you very much. I appreciate it," Trump said, as Christie slunk into the background. Trump had decided to hold a victory press conference rather than a rally—maybe to look Presidential, or to keep the atmosphere classy at Mar-a-Lago, or just for a change of scene, since he has been speaking to large crowds, and working them up to the edge of violence, almost every day. "I am a unifier," Trump said. "I know that people are going to find that a little bit hard to believe, but believe me." He said he would make the G.O.P. bigger and "finer"; he would easily beat Hillary Clinton, "on the assumption that she is allowed to run, which is a big question." (He was referring to what he saw as her e-mail-related legal problems.) And his rivals were done—“Tough night for Marco,” Trump said.

Many observers had thought Rubio had a chance in Virginia, because the demographic profile of Republicans there (better educated, better off, unlikely to have ever dreamed of attending Trump University) did not fit their image of Trump supporters. Rubio did come close, with strong support in the northern Virginia suburbs: Trump won the state by only three per cent. In Alabama, one of the more conservative states, Trump got forty-three per cent of the vote, with Ted Cruz in second, at twenty-one per cent. In Massachusetts, one of the more liberal states, Trump got forty-nine per cent of the vote, with John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, in second this time, with eighteen per cent. Kasich also came close to winning in Vermont; he is looking to the winner-take-all race in his home state, on March 15th, which might give him enough delegates to seem like an option at an open, or brokered, convention. That is essentially Rubio's plan, too, with Florida substituted for Ohio and with more illusions about other states that he might capture with the help of Party leaders and donors. Trump said that he'd heard that Rubio would be getting twenty-five million dollars from "people who want to have their little senator do exactly what they want."

There are those on the Republican side who will feel that they threw everything they could at Trump, and that it mysteriously didn't stick. But did they? For months, his opponents and Republican leaders failed to forcefully confront the pervasive racism in Trump's rhetoric and policies, in part because they coveted his supporters. They were stirred to action last week when, after first disavowing the endorsement of David Duke, a Ku Klux Klan leader, Trump seemed to waver in an interview with CNN. (He blamed a bad earpiece.) On Tuesday, Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, without mentioning Trump's name, said that he expected any Republican candidate to repudiate "white supremacists," and that the G.O.P. itself was not prejudiced. He then confirmed that he would support whomever the Party nominated, including Trump. Ryan’s Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell, basically said only that Senate Republicans didn't like the Klan. (One would hope not.) As a result, the test that Ryan and McConnell have set for Trump is too easy: just disavow David Duke, something Trump believes he's already done. Is the Party capable of pushing harder than that?

On Tuesday night, Rubio alternated his "con artist" line with dark remarks about how Barack Obama violated the Constitution "every day," and a call to put more people in Guantánamo. Rubio's attacks during the past few days have been crudely expressed (he talked, insinuatingly, about Trump's "small hands," and wondered if he'd wet himself during the most recent debate) and ideologically shallow. The main “con” Rubio accused Trump of was not being as conservative as he claims to be. This charge has been made even more frequently by Cruz, who used part of his speech on Tuesday night to demand that Trump allow the Times to release an off-the-record transcript of Trump’s meeting with the editorial board, which Cruz suggested might reveal a secret pro-immigrant agenda. He also called for the abolishment of the I.R.S. He said, “And, unlike Donald Trump, I will never compromise away our right to keep and bear arms." The attacks on Trump have largely involved both him and his opponents taking liberties in defense of extremism, rather than finding justice in a defense of moderation.

Trump seems to have found one angle in this game that he likes. "Planned Parenthood has done very good work for some, for many, many, for millions of women. And I'll say it," he said on Tuesday. He is opposed to abortion, and would deny Planned Parenthood funding on that basis, but said that he didn’t mind that the group provided health care. Saying so qualified him, in his view, as “a truth teller”—a brave conveyer of the hard, unpopular fact that women in America can benefit from cancer screenings. (Cruz, meanwhile, talked in his victory speech about having the Justice Department investigate Planned Parenthood.)

“I have millions and millions and millions of people,” Trump said in his speech, meaning his supporters—there was record turnout on the Republican side. He also offered a quick defense of his plan to ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States. He also tossed in a few New Jersey jokes, to which Christie, who otherwise looked as if he were trying to figure out how far from the rostrum the Vice-President is supposed to stand, responded with joy. Maybe he thought this was some kind of Trump test. But Christie failed a bigger Trump test when, last Friday, he endorsed the Donald, claiming to be driven not by ambition, bitterness, and pettiness—all of which danced across his face as he watched Mr. Trump speak—but patriotism. Super Tuesday provided more evidence that the Republican Party is failing that test, too.

Amy Davidson Sorkin is a New Yorker staff writer. She is a regular Comment contributor for the magazine and writes a Web column, in which she covers war, sports, and everything in between.